NASHVILLE (BP) — Year-to-date Southern Baptist Convention Cooperative Program contributions to the SBC Executive Committee are 3.44 percent below the year-to-date CP budget goal, and 2.72 percent below contributions received during the same time frame last year, SBC Executive Committee President Frank S. Page reported.
The year-to-date contributions to Southern Baptist national and international missions and ministries represents money received by the Executive Committee by the close of the last business day of January. The total includes receipts from state conventions, churches and individuals for distribution according to the 2013-14 SBC CP allocation budget.
The $61,635,784.87 in CP funds received by the Executive Committee from Oct. 1, 2013 through Jan. 31 represents 96.56 percent of the $63,833,333.33 year-to-date budgeted amount to support Southern Baptist ministries in North America and the world. The total is $1,723,628.55 or 2.72 percent less than the $63,359,413.42 received through the end of January 2013.
Designated giving of $37,105,671.38 for the same year-to-date period is 6.56 percent, or $2,605,604.11, below the $39,711,275.49 received at this point last year. This total includes only those gifts received and distributed by the Executive Committee and does not reflect designated gifts contributed directly to SBC entities. Designated contributions include the Lottie Moon Christmas Offering for International Missions, the Annie Armstrong Easter Offering for North American Missions, Southern Baptist Global Hunger Relief (formerly the World Hunger Fund) and other special gifts.
January’s CP allocation receipts for SBC work totaled $17,805,989.26. Designated gifts received last month amounted to $26,066,009.12.
The Cooperative Program is Southern Baptists’ channel of giving through which a local church financially supports the ministries and ministries of its state convention and the SBC with a single contribution at the state level.
State conventions retain a portion of church contributions to the CP to support work in their respective states, and forward a percentage to Southern Baptist national and international causes. The percentage of distribution from the states is at the discretion of the messengers of each state convention through the adoption of the state convention’s annual budget.
The SBC allocation budget goal for 2013-14 is $191,500,000, an increase of 1.86 percent over the $188,000,000 budgeted goal for the previous year, and is distributed as follows: 50.41 percent to support more than 4,800 overseas personnel with the International Mission Board; 22.79 percent to help fuel North American evangelism and church planting through North American Mission Board; 22.16 percent to help underwrite low-cost ministerial preparation and theological education through six SBC seminaries; 2.99 percent to the SBC operating budget; and 1.65 percent to promote biblical morality and religious freedom through the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.
Month-to-month fluctuations in receipts reflect a number of factors, including the number of Sundays in a given month, the day of the month churches forward their CP contributions to their state conventions, the percentage of CP contributions forwarded to the SBC by the state conventions after shared ministry expenses are deducted, and the timing of state convention CP contributions to the Executive Committee.
CP allocation budget receipts received by the Executive Committee are reported monthly to the executives of the entities of the SBC, to the state convention offices and the state Baptist papers, and are posted online at www.cpmissions.net/CPReports.
Compiled by Baptist Press staff.
